<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Cold hearts by Slytherinsangel</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22669171">Cold hearts</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slytherinsangel/pseuds/Slytherinsangel'>Slytherinsangel</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>#OCKissWeek 2020 [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Death of Children, Implied/Referenced Torture, OCKissWeek 2020, Vampires, touchstarved</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 16:42:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>744</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22669171</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slytherinsangel/pseuds/Slytherinsangel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Veronique hadn’t kissed anyone since she died</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>#OCKissWeek 2020 [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1629676</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Cold hearts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Veronique hadn’t kissed anyone since she died, and it came as a surprise to her, how much she missed it. She never had the cause to think what she might miss once she was dead (other than ‘being alive’) before. And as she lay dying, her thoughts were pretty darn occupied with the fact that she was… well <em>dying</em>. If she thought about anything at all. And even then, she hadn’t really been ready to let got of anything much less think about life after death. Yet here she was, 7 months dead and ruminating on the lack of kissing in those months.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It was really surprising, just how much she missed it. Kissing had never played <em>that</em> big of a role in her life, as in, it had never been something she thought about. As an attractive, heterosexual and white middle-class woman, Veronique hadn’t ever had cause to complain about a lack of kissing in her life, or a lack of cute men to kiss. But now her ex-lovers were more likely to die by her hand than anything else.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Don’t get her wrong, there were plenty other things she missed about her previous life – her <em>alive </em>life. Sunshine for example. Oh, how she missed feeling the sun warm her skin! Her roommate had always scolded Veronique about sunbathing an excessive amount and risking skin cancer. How ironic, that cancer was no danger to her anymore, but the sun would burn her to a crisp before she could even lie down.)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Being dead really but a dampener on kissing anyone. Not only was her body cold enough to literally keep hot milk from overboiling, her lips (and the rest of her body) had become hard and unyielding. And no one wanted to kiss -or be kissed by – an ice sculpture. Besides that, there was the fact that her body was dead, not exactly decomposing, but stuck somewhere just at the start of it. And as such… well there was no other way to describe it… Veronique smelled. Strongly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Fortunately not <em>too</em> bad, but there was still a cloying, disturbingly sweet scent clinging to her body. It was strong enough to make humans very dizzy and most species with a superior sense of smell complained about headaches in her vicinity. So, no more kissing for Veronique. The situation could be worse though, since her previously quite high libido was as dead as her unbeating heart now.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Still, there was plenty of platonic kissing and other signs of affection she could and did miss. Amal would likely tell her that she was touch-starved. Veronique wasn’t sure what to think about that term. She thought it made her sound a bit pathetic, and it was just another she was starving for. Although – could you be starving for a liquid? Shouldn’t it be ‘parched’? But would it be ‘parched for blood’ or ‘blood-parched’? Both sounded pretty stupid. ‘Starving’ at least described the feeling better: No matter how much blood she consumed, she couldn’t get enough energy to stay awake for more than 8 hours. And she hadn’t sunken low enough to drain dozens of people or slaughter children for a bit of extra energy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And she was getting distracted. Could you become distracted while reminiscing? Anyway, she had been thinking about kissing. She <em>really</em> missed it. The familiar intimacy of little pecks as well as the desire and passion of making out - just because Veronique was dead didn’t mean she had lost her taste for being desired. The media had completely lied to her about that. There was absolutely nothing that made vampires specifically attractive (or even at all attractive) to people. Humans were at best slightly intrigued, at worst totally out of it to feel any desire towards her and other species were usually something close to repulsed. There were <em>some</em> people who hang out with her out of their own free will, but that stemmed more from shared trauma than anything else.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The quiet rapping of knuckles on glass startled Veronique out of her wallowing. Amal stood next to her, her good hand still resting on the window Veronique had motionlessly leaned against. She looked concerned and tired, but still gave her an encouraging smile and hold out her other hand. The most bodily contact Veronique got these days and it was only because Amal couldn’t feel the cold in that hand anymore. She sighed tonelessly and righted herself. The war waited for no one.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I know how cheesy the title is, but I am really tired and just want to go to sleep, so please forgive me.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>